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Subject: RE: [emergency] Talking Point re CAP and CEA "Public Alert"
Walid -
Of course context is important. That's why I'm suggesting we not try
to apply technical definitions beyond their appropriate context. We
need to remember that the rest of the world uses many words
differently.
As a practical matter I believe the general public understands
"compatible" to mean "won't interfere." And most direct stakeholders
(emergency managers, product marketers, elected officials) really
take "compatible" to mean "won't make my existing product, system or
program less valuable, or make my prior decisions look bad." We can
use more rigorous definitions within our technical community, but
most folks have mundane concerns. And if they're interested in the
technical details, those are all available.
Anyway "compatible" * isn't the same thing as "identical." The
content of SAME (including CEA's "extended SAME") format messages can
be expressed fully and directly in the CAP format... even though,
because SAME is an older and less flexible standard, not everything
that can be expressed in a CAP message can be communicated in SAME.
That's one way in which CAP represents progress.
As for "interoperability"... CAP is a content standard, not a system
architecture. Interoperability depends on how and where CAP is
used.... just like interoperability of voice radios depends on a
whole set of factors... frequency, modulation scheme, network
architecture, content format, management procedure and so on.
For example, voice radios can operate on different frequencies and
still interoperate if the network architecture (a repeater or a
cross-channel patch) links them. So are they "reeeeeeeeally"
interoperable? Below the functional level the question rapidly loses
meaning, especially for end-users whose only goal is getting messages
from A to B.
Anyway, this isn't really a TC issue, it's more of a PR and/or
marketing concern... unless the TC proposes to go into the
compatibility certification business, which I think we'd decided not
to do. I was just offering a personal informational suggestion in
case anyone got blindsided by this issue. Nothing normative or
mandatory about it.
- Art
At 11:13 AM -0400 4/10/04, Walid Ramadan wrote:
>Art, I beleive the context is actually extremely important. It looks
>like "compatible" is being used to imply that CAP can "interoperate"
>with those other systems, but not "reeeeeeeeally" interoperate with
>them. So which way is it? Does it or does it not? I believe the
>introduction of terms such as "co-exist", "constructive", and
>"relatively" to define "compatible" is only making the definition of
>"compatible" more elusive. And given that the folks you listed are
>not tech-savvy, how do we ensure that their definition of
>"compatible" is, to use your term, "compatible" with ours? Could it
>be that in their minds, compatible means fully interoperable?
>
>Walid
>
>